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3.4 Features missing in 4.0


querschlaeger

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Please start individual topics about feedback. A "list" topic like this gets hard to follow. I actually just sat down to reply to many points in this topic and I was getting lost :)

Nearly everything pointed out in this topic does actually exist in 4.0 (but in a different way). Anything to do with search/VNC/activity stream we are working on enhancing. All other items please do start a separate topic so we can respond to those in a more organized way. Thanks!

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We prefer the conversational format of a forum topic so everyone can discuss all the pros and cons of an idea :)

Yes, that's good. But we are going endlessly around in circles discussing the same features again and again (in this forum and several others) because we (the customers) have no idea whether a feature from 3.4.x will be restated to 4.0 / not restated / might be restated. For those features which will / may be restated in 4.0, we have no idea of timescale.

Perhaps IPS has stated an intention to restate a function is some forum or other, but we need a central source of information rather than have to wade through through 100's of posts to try and find this information.

So yes, forums are good for discussion but this should be backed up by some form of database similar to the feature plan once IPS has made a decision to restate / not restate a 3.4.x feature. That will enable customers to plan when (or whether) to move our sites over to 4.0.

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Yes, that's good. But we are going endlessly around in circles discussing the same features again and again (in this forum and several others) because we (the customers) have no idea whether a feature from 3.4.x will be restated to 4.0 / not restated / might be restated. For those features which will / may be restated in 4.0, we have no idea of timescale.

Perhaps IPS has stated an intention to restate a function is some forum or other, but we need a central source of information rather than have to wade through through 100's of posts to try and find this information.

So yes, forums are good for discussion but this should be backed up by some form of database similar to the feature plan once IPS has made a decision to restate / not restate a 3.4.x feature. That will enable customers to plan when (or whether) to move our sites over to 4.0.

We add stuff here once we know we're doing it: http://community.invisionpower.com/4releasenotes/ :) 

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We add stuff here once we know we're doing it: http://community.invisionpower.com/4releasenotes/ :) 

Yes, that's helpful. But it doesn't deal with the issue of the majority of the missing features discussed in this (and other) threads where customers still do not know whether a missing feature is going to be returned or not. I repeat, this makes future planning for customers very difficult as to whether IPS4.0 is a potential upgrade.

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We add stuff here once we know we're doing it: http://community.invisionpower.com/4releasenotes/ :) 

I see that these release notes have now been improved (with a minor change to the URL provided by Mark) - https://community.invisionpower.com/release-notes/

These do indeed give some indication of returning features AND timescales; these new release notes are certainly a welcome addition. A significant advance on your competitors as far as I'm aware - thank you.

I still think that it would be useful to know which other missing features are under consideration by IPS and which ones won't be returning (eg because they're technically not feasible, minimal demand etc).

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I just don't think you can expect them to provide exact points about specific features coming in future releases too far ahead. They're already giving us the rough details of the next couple of releases, but any further than that is probably not feasible. One of the reasons for this is that plans tend to change and priorities can get swapped around. Promising exact details too early can lead to drama when they suddenly find themselves needing to change things around and prioritise some other things first, for instance.

The release notes page has a rough roadmap at the bottom of the page though.

Their level of communication is already marvellous and I honestly couldn't expect more on that side of things. :)

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read somewhere before that iPS didn't put together a complete IPS 3 feature list when creating IPS 4. Rather, they were completely forward thinking in what they thought was best starting with a clean slate. As a result, there are a number of upgrade difficulties and questions of compatibility, such as Friends now Followers, post count numbering, etc. and choices need be made. Here's an idea -- is it possible to create some type of editable wiki page where IPS users can create one master list of features with gradual updates whether the feature is in short term or long term plans or not at all?

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Yes, that's helpful. But it doesn't deal with the issue of the majority of the missing features discussed in this (and other) threads where customers still do not know whether a missing feature is going to be returned or not. I repeat, this makes future planning for customers very difficult as to whether IPS4.0 is a potential upgrade.

I understand your point, however, there should be few things that prevent an upgrade to IPS4 for the masses... those that are true perceived show stoppers are being addressed promptly, if not already done so. Many others that people feel are "missing" are simply done differently - better documentation and just general Q&A should help with this. 

We can't detail every idea and confirm whether something is or isn't going to be added for several reasons: 

1) We're very interactive which sometimes has the side effect of confusing a community project with a commercial product. We simply cannot involve you with every detail of IPS, I'm afraid - even if you think it's no big deal to plug through a list and say "yes", "no", "maybe" to everything. 

2) Sometimes it's not as simple as "yes, we'll add this!" We may know internally that we want to do something, but once we get to the point of actually doing something, there's an unforeseen roadblock that makes it unfeasible or the drama to benefit ratio is too substantial. We don't want to commit to every single feature suggestion before we're 100% sure it's happening. When it reaches the roadmap, you can be reasonably sure you'll see it and in the near future, not months and months from now. 

3) At the end of the day, we are a company with proprietary information and there are some things that we're going to keep to ourselves until the time is right. I've mentioned before, we're not going to add an arbitrary list of people you consider "friends" just for the sake of it, but we do have plans to incorporate social features that are far more reaching that what you're expecting, but that's as much as I'm willing to say because frankly, we have to consider the fact that clients aren't the only ones interested in what our future plans are. :)

I consider IPS clients to be fortunate... you don't know what someone like Apple is doing until mere weeks before they do it and you'll never get an answer to whether something you consider a "deal-breaker" is going to be introduced or return until it actually happens. That usually how things carry out - we just follow a newfound principle of providing as much information as we can... hopefully we can continue to do so without falling into the "give an inch, take a mile" trap. 

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Nearly everything pointed out in this topic does actually exist in 4.0 (but in a different way).

[…] Please start individual topics about feedback.

I do that—but often that leads nowhere. 

Examples:

 

 

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I do that—but often that leads nowhere. 

Agree that topics get lost. This topic with all the suggestions in one has gotten more staff replies than my topics as well.

What would be nice is a Suggestion Box database like the Tracker. Where suggestions get voted up by members. Sorted by new by default, but one click, and can sort by most popular. Perhaps a sidebox sorted by popularity. Staff could mark them with implementation status. Once marked as being implemented, they are removed from the popular status (so we could see what is popular and not implemented). Categories per app would ensure they didn't get lost. And if they didn't get voted up we could assume they were not popular and decide if we want to pay for a mod. But the way it is now, in the forum, and one forum for all... fact is, they do get lost. Perhaps staff sees them all as they say, but not all members see them... members who could vote them up to let staff know they are popular.  A categorized database with votes would be ideal.

 

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I don't like the way the title shows now. My site is only forum-based, and when you access the main page, it shows "Forums - MyDomain.com". I think there is no need to show "Forums - " in the main page, would be nice to have an option to show only the site name, like "MyDomain.com".

Tried to edit some files but until now, no luck. I've created a topic asking for help but no one answered. Not happy with that :(

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We prefer the conversational format of a forum topic so everyone can discuss all the pros and cons of an idea :)

 

Couldn't you have it like the bug tracker ?

4.x Ideas Maker ?

Each has a topic and can be discussed

You can then have flags like Dismissed, Already There, to be implements, Under Discussion etc

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Hi  @Lindy If you think suggestions can be lost within a big topic, I also think it can be lost among other topics as well . I re-suggest having a seperate database for ideas similar to Bug Tracker so that we can keep track of what is suggested, what is actionable, what is not

 

@Charles & @Lindy the demand grows :)

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I agree. If you want us to provide feedback, could you please at least acknowledge that you have seen it. Things move rapidly on a forum and quite often good ideas get buried with no response from IPS. You do not have to say yes, no, or maybe, but at least have someone in the staff say "Your concern has been noted and will be taken into consideration".

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We really do read every single feedback topic so you can assume that your feedback is noted as soon as you post it :)

The reason we do not reply to every topic is because we are usually waiting to see if other clients join in on the feedback too. If a single person posts a single topic and no one else agrees it's way less likely to get implemented. Think of it as crowd-sourced feedback. This is also why we do not want an "ideas tracker" because the conversation is just as important as the idea itself.

That is also why we prefer each topic is focused on a single point. It allows us to organically prioritize feedback.

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The problem with that is not every member sees every topic. They get pushed down in NC and disappear when some members are here for support and not reading feature requests. You are a small staff so we trust you do read them. I've seen "Polls should have a closing time/date" topics be posted since I've been a member, and chimed in every time it comes up, but staff has never given an answer on that one, for example. There's even a current one floating around from 2011. Wouldn't you say it has enough replies and bumps since 2011 to warrant a response? Thanks

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